Whenever starting anything new, I always feel a sense of excitement, uncertainty, and nervousness. As with my first day at Tech Data, I was excited the night before, to the point where I couldn’t sleep. I was uncertain as I walked through the big glass doors leading into the building, making me look a little (lot) lost. And I was nervous as I stood in a group of 33 interns waiting in the lobby, which was very uncomfortable. However, sitting here at my desk writing this blog a week later, I feel perfectly at home.
There is really only one story that I would like to share from the first week that I hope will illustrate the culture of Family, Teamwork, and Belonging Tech Data truly emulates. To some, I may seem naïve, but it’s only my first week so there is plenty of time for something to go wrong:
When I sat down at my cubicle on the third floor, there about seven people I was introduced to immediately around me. Every single person expressed a welcome and that they were there to help if I needed anything. This surprised me because, as the intern, I expected that it was my job to help them. Well, they were not lying when they said they were willing to help me. After about an hour of job training, I quickly realized two things. 1) I had no idea how to use Microsoft Outlook to email people. And 2) my job was going to be very tedious since my desk only consisted of one monitor. As I was sitting at my desk, I said to one of my team members, “I wish I had another monitor so that I could drag stuff across the screen.” Before I could even realize what was happening, about six people were standing at my desk taking apart my set-up. Two guys grabbed two monitors and set up a dual monitor desk, another person was plugging in all the wires, and even more, people were brainstorming on how to get them to connect to my laptop. I am not exaggerating when I state that within 5 minutes, my desk had changed from a comfortable intern setup to a kick-ass intern headquarters…. And it gets better. I said aloud, “I wish you guys could help me with my email.” Immediately, yet another colleague was at my cube taking time out of his work day to thumb through all of my settings to make them more user-friendly and explain them to me.
I would like to thank everyone in the Advanced Solutions department, APC team, and Intern program for being so welcoming and supportive.
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